Chapter 1

What is organizational Behavior

Importance of Interpersonal Skills

1980s business school curricula
emphasized the technical aspects of management,

economics, accounting, finance, and quantitative

techniques.
less attention to human behavior and people skills

From last past three decades

realize the role of understanding human behavior-added to

many curricula

Importance of Interpersonal Skills

Your observation probably that all people in organization

are not rational, generally their behaviors are

unpredictable-you probably have not had the tools to
make these observations systematically. This is where
organizational behavior come into play

What Mangers Do
Managers: get things done through other people-

administrators
They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the

activities of others to attain goals.

Organization: consciously coordinated social unit,

composed of two or more people, that functions on a

relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or
set of goals.
Manufacturing and service firms are organizations

Ways to Look What Mangers Do

Management function
Management Roles
Management Skills
Managerial Activities

Management Functions
Planning: defining an organizations goals, establishing an

overall strategy for achieving those goals, and developing a

comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
increases from lower-level to mid-level

Organizing: designing an organizations structure

Leading: direct and coordinate
Controlling: monitoring, comparing, and potential correcting
So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question

What domanagers do? is that they plan, organize, lead, and

control.
French industrialist Henri Fayol (condensed now)

Management Roles
Interpersonal Roles: duties that are ceremonial and

symbolic in nature
Figurehead: Symbolic head; required to perform a number

of routine duties of a legal or social nature

Leader: Responsible for the motivation and direction of
employees
Liaison: Maintains a network of outside contacts who
provide favors and information

Management Roles
Informational Roles: collect information from outside

organizations and institutions

Monitor: Receives a wide variety of information; serves as

nerve center of internal and external information of the

organization
Disseminator: Transmits information received from
outsiders or from other employees to members of the
organization
Spokesperson: Transmits information to outsiders on
organizations plans, policies, actions, and results; serves as
expert on organizations industry

Management Roles
Decisional Roles: making choices
Entrepreneur: Searches organization and its environment for

opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change

Disturbance handler: Responsible for corrective action
when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances
Resource allocator: Makes or approves significant
organizational decisions
Negotiator: Responsible for representing the organization at
major negotiations
1960s, Henry Mintzberg

Management Skill
Technical Skills: ability to apply specialized knowledge

or expertise
Human Skills: ability to understand, communicate with,
motivate, and support other people, both individually and
in groups
Conceptual Skills: mental ability to analyze and
diagnose complex situations

Managerial Activities
Traditional management: Decision making, planning,

and controlling
Communication: Exchanging routine information and
processing paperwork
Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining,
managing conflict, staffing, and training
Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting
with outsiders
Luthans et. al.

Review
Importance of managing people recognizes through all

discussed ways to look about managers job

Functions-leading
Roles-interpersonal
Skills-Human skill
Activities-HRM, Communication, Networking

Managing people- unpredictable behaviors - need tools to

make predictions systematically- a study of organizational

behavior

Organizational behavior (OB)

A field of study that investigates the impact that

individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within

organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge
toward improving an organizations effectiveness

More about OB
Systematic study: looking at relationships, attempting to

attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on

scientific evidencethat is, on data gathered under
controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a
reasonably rigorous manner
Management decision
Evidence-based management (EBM): managerial decisions on

the best available scientific evidence.

Intuition: A gut feeling not necessarily supported by researchworking with incomplete information
EBM add to Intitution = high probability of right decision

Discipline that contribute in the

Field of OB
OB is applied behavioral science-builds on contribution

on no. of behavioral disciplines

Psychology: seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes

change the behavior of humans and other animals

Sociology: studies people in relation to their social
environment or culture
Social psychology: blends concepts from both psychology
and sociology to focus on peoples influence on one another
Anthropology: study of societies to learn about human
beings and their activities

Few Absolutes
Laws in the physical sciences-generalizeable
Laws in the behavioral sciences-limited

generalizibilty
God gave all the easy problems to the
physicists.
Human beings are complex, and are not alikelimited simplicity, accuracy, and generalizabilty
But reasonably accurate explanation of human behavior can
be made
In OB, few, if any, simple explanation
OB concepts reflects situational or contingency conditions

OBs Challenges and

Opportunities
Responding to Economic Pressures
Responding to Globalization
Working with People from Different Cultures
Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor
Managing Workforce Diversity
Improving Customer Service
Improving People Skills
Stimulating Innovation and Change
Coping with Temporariness
Working in Networked Organizations
Helping Employees Balance WorkLife Conflicts
Creating a Positive Work Environment
Improving Ethical Behavior

OB Model
Model: an abstraction of reality, a

simplified representation of some real

world phenomenon.
Inputs: variables that lead to processes
Processes: actions that individuals, groups,
and organizations engage in as a result of
inputs and that lead to certain outcomes
Outcomes: key variables that you want to
explain or predict, and that are affected by
some other variables